50% of Profits from Print Sales Will be Donated to the Cheyenne River Youth Project® in Eagle Butte, South Dakota
Timberline Media LLC, the Colorado-based creative group behind a new fine-art book project to document the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation’s "beauty in unexpected places," has made a selection of its photographs available for purchase through the online marketplace Fine Art America. Fifty percent of all profits from print sales will benefit the Cheyenne River Youth Project® in Eagle Butte, South Dakota.
According to Richard Steinberger, Timberline Media’s director of photography, the team decided to take this step due to the amount of interest the coffeetable book project has generated, both in South Dakota and on a national level.
"We’ve gotten a lot of feedback from people who want to purchase images for their homes and offices," Steinberger explained. "The book likely won’t be published until 2013, so we decided to make a selection of images available now. We’re happy to do it, since the images really seem to be striking a chord with people. It’s also another way to provide support to the Cheyenne River Youth Project in the near term, and that’s very important to us.”
Timberline Media was founded by Steinberger and his wife, Heather, a nationally published freelance writer who volunteered with CRYP in summer 2006 and has served as the not-for-profit youth organization’s public relations manager since the fall of that year. The writer-photographer duo joined forces with accomplished Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin-based photographer Matt Normann in 2011 to develop what they are calling, for now, “The Cheyenne River Fine Art Project.”
The completed coffeetable book will celebrate Cheyenne River’s landscapes, its flora and fauna, its communities, its traditions and its people. The photographers completed trips to Cheyenne River in August, October and December of last year; in 2012, they expect to make four more trips.
While they are gathering images, Cheyenne River’s young people are participating in a weekly writing group for teens and in periodic writing workshops for all ages. Once photography is complete this fall, Heather Steinberger will work with CRYP staff to identify the strongest pieces of writing to emerge from these efforts, edit those pieces and pair them with appropriate images in the book. That way, Cheyenne River will be introduced to general audiences by those who know it best — its youth.
For photographer Matt Normann, December has proved to be the most exciting month so far. He took part in the Annual Chief Big Foot Ride to Wounded Knee, joining the other riders after Christmas and reaching the event’s finish line on the Pine Ridge reservation.
“The facts of the 1890 Wounded Knee massacre are straightforward,” Normann said. “What you cannot get from reading those facts, however, is the living history that unfolds each year with this ride. It isn’t so much a journey of distance as it is a journey of the spirit.
“I was extremely fortunate to be welcomed for the final two days of the ride, which began on December 14 on the Standing Rock reservation,” he continued.
Normann said he quickly realized the toll a ride like this places on the body, although he is an experienced horseman.
“The weather, terrain, speed and distance were compounded by the challenge of trying to photograph with a 5-pound professional camera in one hand and the reins in the other,” he recalled with a laugh. “Then came the bigger challenge: trying to not simply document the trip, but to tell the larger story in a handful of images.”
Throughout the ride, Normann said he experienced three important things. The first was the spirit of community, of a deeper connection forged between people on a united quest. The second was respect — during the ceremonies for the different legs of the journey, and in the way each rider cared for his or her horse.
And the third can best be said the Lakota way: mitakuye oyasin. We are all relatives.
“I began the ride thinking it would be a journey over land and distance, with the reward coming at the conclusion at Wounded Knee,” Normann reflected. “Instead, I gained an understanding that it is within the journey itself, within the process itself, that the true reward is found. The rolling South Dakota prairie became the canvas for a Jackson Pollock masterpiece, with colorful splashes of kinship, stewardship, respect, hard work, determination, tradition, connection, humility and a strong sense of place and of self.
“I’m deeply grateful to Bryce Little Thunder and Carl Buffalo for helping me, and for sharing the experience of the ride with me,” he concluded. “I’ll carry that experience with me for the rest of my life.”
A few of Normann’s images from the Annual Chief Big Foot Ride to Wounded Knee are available for purchase in Timberline Media’s Fine Art America collection. To review the images and make a purchase, visit http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/timberline-media-llc.html.
To learn more about the Cheyenne River Fine Art Project, visit www.cheyenneriverfineart.com. On the site, Steinberger and Normann will continue to share the images they’re gathering. The site also includes a blog, which shares information about press coverage, new project developments and planned trips to the reservation. Those interested also may follow the team’s progress through Facebook; simply visit www.facebook.com/CheyenneRiverArtProject.
To learn more about the Cheyenne River Youth Project® and its programs, and for information about making donations and volunteering, call (605) 964-8200 or visit www.lakotayouth.org. And, to stay up to date on the latest CRYP news and events, visit the youth project’s Facebook “Cause” page. All Cause members will receive regular updates through Facebook.
The Cheyenne River Youth Project®, founded in 1988, is a grassroots, not-for-profit organization dedicated to providing the youth of the Cheyenne River reservation with access to a vibrant and secure future through a wide variety of culturally sensitive and enduring programs, projects and facilities that ensure strong, self-sufficient families and communities.